


Breathing Asphodel

by paintpuddles



Series: Harry Potter and the Flurry of Ficlets [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Apart from all the feels, BAMF Lily Evans Potter, Eventual James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, F/M, Flowers, Hanahaki AU, Hanahaki Disease, Independent Lily Evans Potter, Language of Flowers, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Mostly Canon Compliant, New take on an old trope, One-Sided Attraction, Potions, Potions Ingredients as Metaphors, Sort Of, Strong Lily Evans Potter, Trope Subversion/Inversion, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:33:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24771691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paintpuddles/pseuds/paintpuddles
Summary: Lily has revolved around him for years, ever since he held out his hand and made impossible things happen; cracked open her tiny little world and showed her magic.And for the longest time she loves him.And then he rips her apart.“Mudblood," he says, and it's like poison right in the heart of her.She starts coughing.~Basically I got fed up of people online blaming Lily for not loving Snape so I decided fuck it she’s getting a fic where she’s strong and brave and needs no man, especially not one that treats her like shit thank-you-not-very-much.Yes I’m salty.
Relationships: Alice Longbottom/Frank Longbottom, James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Lily Evans Potter/Severus Snape, Marlene McKinnon/Sirius Black, Minor or Background Relationship(s), One-sided Lily Evans Potter/Severus Snape - Relationship
Series: Harry Potter and the Flurry of Ficlets [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1522328
Comments: 13
Kudos: 101





	Breathing Asphodel

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve seen soooo many unrequited one-sided Lily/Snape fics where Snape is hopelessly in love with Lily, so I thought... why not change it up? Why not have _Lily_ be the one alone in love?
> 
> And of course I made it a Hanahaki AU because I love that trope even if it’s super cliché and everyone just tells the exact same story over and over with it.
> 
> So there will be no _“oh no I love him but he doesn’t love me, let me cough up flowers and pine for him for three quarters of this fic whilst he obviously loves me too, and then right before my tragic demise he shall suddenly declare his devout, undying love for me and I shall be magically saved~!”_
> 
> Yeah, no.
> 
> Lily is a badass witch, she doesn’t need no man and she’s certainly not going to tragically almost-die because of one. Excuse you. We have standards in this house.
> 
> **NB. whilst I do usually write Snape more positively, at this point in the HP timeline he is undeniably a git. Bashing isn't my style, but this isn't exactly complimentary to him, since it's from Lily's POV. Just so ya know.**

_Your wormwood's in my lungs,  
I'm breathing asphodel  
Blind with trust, I never dreamt  
You'd hurt me when I fell_  
  
_I'm choking on your flowers  
Their petals make me sick  
How monstrous pure love can be  
When it's twisted, torn, tragic_  
  
_You filled my lungs with wormwood,  
Choked me with your asphodel  
Strangled in your vines, I've learned  
Loving you is a living hell_

* * * * * * * * *

Lily has revolved around him for years, ever since he held out his hand and made impossible things happen; cracked open her tiny little world and showed her magic.

And for the longest time she loves him.

It changes, like seasons or the colours of a brewing potion; her love changes as they do. First, it is innocent and filled up with fast friendship; next it spirals into an intimate closeness of best friends that starts slipping into something beyond. As she grows, her love grows too, becoming flushed red cheeks and averted eyes and hopeless little smiles; after years of this silent, loyal love, she is steadfast and protective and she knows him like he knows fluxweed and knotgrass and her laugh.

And then he rips her apart.

" _Mudblood_ ," he says, and it's like poison right in the heart of her. And for the first time she realises that her love is fragile and lonely and broken. Her love is alone. For all that she adores him, he has turned away to something else. Something dark and terrible. Something she can't forgive - not even out of love.

So she turns away too, even as tears stream down her face and her hands shake and she wants to scream. Even as her lungs tighten and constrict, infected with a plague of his wormwood; as he burns their past like charcoal or mouldy parchment, and leaves her choking on the fumes, the ashes, the smoke. He leaves her suffocating on his asphodel.

He was magic and life and love; now he is the Draught of Living Death, crippling her slowly as the sickly remnants of him creep through her veins.

And even though it hurts - even though it's killing her, even though some days she'd rather rip them right out of her - she keeps breathing in his flowers, inhaling the scent of their lethal allure.

She starts coughing.

It's a sign of sickness, she knows, but she doesn't bother with any trips to the hospital wing or Madam Pomfrey. She simply tucks tissues and handkerchiefs in her pockets, slips throat soothers in her bag and swears that she'll tell no one. Flowers and thorns may be spilling past her lips, but this secret never will.

It's not that she doesn't trust anyone - quite the opposite, despite all that has happened - but everyone knows that there's nothing healers can do for Hanahaki disease, and she knows that's what she's got. It's not like many afflictions leave you retching and choking on flowers, after all.

But it's not just that; Lily has always been a private person. She detests having her secrets and personal affairs spread around by nosy little gossips, and she can only imagine the _scandal_ that this particular juicy bit of news would cause.

 _Evans the Mudblood, hacking up plants in the girl's toilet because she's cow-eyed for Snape_.

Yes, Lily knows _exactly_ how some of her peers would react. Her best friends would be horrified, of course, and worried and concerned and likely angry on her behalf; if she didn't think she'd probably worry them sick with the news, she'd tell them. Marlene and Alice, at the very least, deserve to know. But Alice is sensitive and would probably cry more than even Lily has about the whole mess, and Marlene wouldn't be able to resist punching Severus in the face.

_(He's not Severus, now, he's Snape. He chose this - this horrible, gaping distance between them. But it's hard to remember that when she's called him Sev for years, and loving him is so in-grained it's a habit and part of who she is. It's a slow, agonising process to tear that piece of herself out, and she still doesn't know what she'll fill that hole with when these toxic feelings are gone. Frankly, the thought scares her. Because what if she puts herself back together with something worse?)_

_(What if she doesn't put herself back together at all?)_

_(What if she can't?)_

Her friends know about the crying, at least - not even intensely private Lily can hide that much - and half the school knows she's fallen out, badly, with Sever- ...Snape. Plenty of her classmates had witnessed the altercation that had caused the whole thing, after all. They'd all heard the _Mudblood_ and seen Lily's shocked, deeply hurt expression morphing into blazing anger.

(They'd all seen the fury, but no one had seen the devastation in the aftermath. No one had witnessed the trembling and the sobbing and the way her breaths kept hitching and breaking apart in her lungs. No one was there to wipe her face dry or hold her hands or keep her hair back while she threw up in the toilet.)

In the weeks that follow Lily's world falling apart suddenly and rather spectacularly, Alice gives her chocolate and hugs and tries to distract her with classwork and silly little stories about anything she can think of. Marlene promises to hex "that stinking Snape" so badly he eats his own kneecaps and chokes on his toes, and Lily snorts and laughs and cries, and they both press up against her and hold her whilst she comes apart and hurriedly presses herself back together.

Like all horribly, unimaginably awful things in life, it gets better. Or at least, Lily gets used to the pain. She learns to manage the anger and grief and flares of scalding, aching hurt that scratch at her soul; she finds a way to keep her chin and eyes up and head held high, even if the rest of her feels like it's been trampled into the ground.

Slowly - so agonisingly slowly - it gets better.

Lily is still coughing, but she's used to it now. She's practically _talented_ at the entire bloody disaster: she can suppress coughing fights for several minutes at a time; she's learned to cup her hands and tissues around her mouth to prevent stray petals from slipping out; her Vanishing spills are so quick and effortless the evidence is gone almost as quickly as it comes. Lily even begins learning how to Vanish petals that are still in her mouth.

(There's nothing she can do about the petals in her lungs. The plants that strangle her bronchus are made of her own magic, resistant to any spells she might try to rid herself of them; it is a horrible example of a witch's magical core turning against itself. Like one of those Muggle autoimmune diseases or cancers, but worse, because she's unconsciously doing it to herself and she can't make it stop.)

She only coughs forcefully enough to bring up petals once or twice a day. The flora she spits out of her mouth change in accordance with herself and her surroundings - they are, after all, made by her own magic and are a reflection of how she is feeling. Some days - the days she can't stop watching him with hurt longing - they're beautiful daffodils or the petals of snowdrops. The days she hates him so much she can barely breathe through her burning anger, she chokes on hard, clawing thorns that rip at her throat, and prickly branches that make her mouth taste of blood.

On the days she thinks she'll never forgive him, and that she's better off without his shadows in her life, she spits out shiny black belladonna berries, and she hates them bitterly and unreservedly; she hates them as much as she wishes she could hate him.

On rare days, when she's lost in hopelessness and close to giving up, the flowers she coughs up are shrivelled, blackened and dead. They taste like ashes and rot in her mouth.

But those days are rare, and she fights each one with everything she's got.

Nettles make her tongue sting, but not as much as the words she wishes she could throw at him. Their silence is all she has, though, so she bundles up all the dark, twisted feelings trying to take root in her heart and ruthlessly shoves them deep down inside her to starve and die. When that doesn't work, she torches them.

Lily Evans is not a girl to lie about and wither. Not even this frigid winter can force a fire flower as fierce as _her_ to waste away.

She starves those hateful little weeds of compassion and empathy and adoration still wrapped around her heart for him; she crushes the seeds of forgiveness and understanding and regret that are buried and lying dormant in her chest. He has shredded her like boomslang skin, ground her down as if he were a pestle and his callous indifference the mortar; he does not deserve anything left of the girl he has crushed, even if she breathes flowers for him. He might cause the flowers, but they are _hers_ , and she owes him nothing.

Least of all the petals grown in her pain.

So Lily learns to fight back.

She stops letting Snape consume her every thought. Starts forcing herself to leave her dormitory; to go out, to talk to people, to take trips to Hogsmeade and rejoin the Charms Club. She hands her homework in on time, always done to the best of her ability, and focuses in class. It's not perfect, she's not superhuman, and sometimes she slips up. Sometimes she still sees him in the corridors and the back of classrooms and her dreams - but every time she does she forces herself to look away.

She can't stop him from being there. Snape is ever-present, lurking in the Great Hall and most of her lessons and the back of her mind. She can't prevent that. But she _can_ stop herself from noticing.

Lily starts wandlessly casting a tiny little _Lumos_ every time she can't stop her thoughts or eyes from straying; she makes herself look down and concentrate on the little ball of light in her hand. She reminds herself that her little light won't go out - that she refuses to let it - and that it will only grow when she takes it out of the darkness and stops trying to suffocate it or snuff it out.

It works. Soon she's playing with coloured light, and strings of lights, and bouncing them off her desk absentmindedly. She slips orbs of white and baby blue and bright yellow between her slim fingers; she forges one that is scarlet and striking gold and uses it as a nightlight on days that are particularly bad. When some supremacist Slytherins try to gang up on her and mock the end of her friendship with Snape, she throws her lights at them and lets them think they are spells; she laughs when one of them runs away.

She floats the other two to the infirmary afterwards.

In a fit of morbid humour and dark irony, she starts Conjuring up flowers and weaving their stalks into bracelets and miniature bouquets. She wraps a slim, firm branch around her left wrist and watches the dark brown wood bloom with pale pink cherry blossom. When she's bored she doodles daisies on scraps of parchment and Transfigures them to gold; one Saturday in a fit of ridiculous rebellion she braids small white roses into her long red hair and grins at her beautiful reflection.

She is beautiful, she reminds herself. And these flowers can be, too.

It feels like she's relearning her entirety, her minutiae, her everything in between. This is not who she was; this is not who she thought she would be. It's painful and new and there are flowers everywhere, but for the first time she sees more than just the struggle and suffering and agony of it. For the first time she realises that even though she's still coughing flowers, she's also managing to breathe.

She hasn't suffocated on his asphodel and wormwood. She's awake, she's breathing, she's alive and formidable and brilliant and _more than this_ , Merlin damn it all.

Lily refuses to be afraid of the flowers. They are her, after all. And she refuses to fear or hate or disdain any part of herself. Even this.

* * * * * * * *

During Potions, Lily gets an abrupt, overwhelming urge to vomit.

She fights it down, forces it back; takes deep breaths and calms her racing heart. She knows exactly what's causing this: Snape is in this class, and he's two rows across from her with an aisle and a million acid, unspoken words between them, and he's talking in low murmurs to his _friends_. Mulciber, Avery, Rowle. Sick, twisted jerks the lot of them - and unrepentant bullies to any Muggleborn that strays across their path.

It sears her raw heart, the knowledge that he willingly talks to _them_ , spends his time with _them_ , when he _knows_ that they'd happily kill her if they could.

There have been attacks. Rumblings. Political manoeuvres that no one saw coming. There's a war brewing, bubbling and spitting on a hot, burning flame, and it's too late to stop the reaction now.

Lily knows that they're monsters. She wonders how Snape could ever forget.

The betrayal is sharp, but it's old now, too. Time has blunted its stab until it struggles even to pierce skin. It leaves bruises now, instead, but that's better than another open wound. At least this won't scar.

She turns away, looks down at the worktop in front of her. Her cauldron simmers, the potion on the cusp of change. If she does this correctly, the dark, murky brown should shift to colourless.

Lily's hand strays to the next ingredient. When her fingers wrap around it, she pauses.

Wormwood.

The tips of her fingers trace the familiar plant. She has breathed it so many times she could never forget it. Fibrous roots, silver-green stem; a horrible, bitter taste that is sour in her mouth. Powdered, its roots are a key ingredient of the Draught of Living Death.

 _Wormwood_ , she thinks slowly. _Can be used for Living Death... or for medicinal potions. For healing._

She discards the roots and plucks one of the deep green leaves, runs the silvery stem between her fingers. Lets the leaf drop into her cauldron and watches closely.

For a split second, her potion flashes from mud-brown to colourless. For just a moment, the contaminants are gone and the cauldron's contents are clear and pure.

Lily breathes, and it tastes like wormwood. For the first time, she doesn't mind. She thinks it might even be good.

* * * * * * *

During Defence Against the Dark Arts, Lily casts her patronus. For so long, it has been a doe, and she's glad that even in the midst of all this turmoil and change, the core of her has stayed the same. She's had to tear parts out, and stitch herself together differently, with little gaps and bits missing, and there's one less person in the world who can make her laugh, but this loss hasn't destroyed her. Through everything, she has her resilience and determination; in even the worst of times, she always has _herself_. And that's enough.

She's gotten herself through grief, through betrayal, through flowers in her lungs. She has survived asphodel and wormwood and _him_ , and she is only stronger for it. She swears it to herself. She is more than what he did to her.

When Snape casts his patronus, she keeps her gaze locked firmly forwards and doesn't look. She hears Alice gasp softly beside her, and Marlene stiffens and scowls so fiercely she might actually ignite, and then Lily _knows_ , but she still doesn't look.

She refuses to watch ghosts when she could have something real instead.

In her determination to look the other way, her gaze catches with Potter's. He's been watching Snape, just like most of the class as the professor calls on each of them to demonstrate, but he shifts his attention to her without a moment's thought. He gives her a quick quirk of his lips, somewhere between friendly and reassuring - and Lily knows then that he knows exactly why she's not looking along with everyone else, and he understands - and then he flicks his wand and grins.

A stag canters towards her, powerful and majestic, lifting large antlers and holding itself with royal grace. Her fingers twitch with the sudden urge to reach out and touch, but she keeps herself still and tracks the beautiful blue-white magic with her eyes.

The stag comes to a stop before her, gazing at her with dark eyes framed by fur freckled with speckles and spots, and after a breathless moment inclines its head in a deep dip to her.

Lily can't breathe, and for once it's not because of flowers. For once it's because of something else entirely.

Then the stag leaps and disappears over her shoulder, and there's a commotion and a rush of voices, and no doubt Potter's patronus is causing all sorts of chaos and mischief - probably charging Snape's or putting it to shame, if the swell of noise behind her is any indication - but Lily doesn't turn to look. Instead she keeps watching Potter, and he keeps watching her, and when his eyes twinkle and his cheeky grin widens, she feels her own lips twitch in response.

She looks away, then, determined not to let her guard down or be drawn in by the beauty of his magic and his smile and -

But she can't stop her mind from drifting back to that blue-white stag in the darkness that night, her little Lumos shifting between her fingers and casting a light the exact same shade as the representation of his soul had been. Despite the similarities, the stag wasn't for her - she knows that. But she can't help the whispering little thought that the stag doesn't have to be because of her. That a stag and a doe would be a much better pair, that they'd be a fit, a _match_ , and...

She rolls over and extinguishes her spell. When she closes her eyelids, she still sees magic the colour of moonlight and a gentle smile, but she pretends that she doesn't know what it means, that her dreams are blue-white and cantering.

* * * * * *

The next morning, Lily coughs against her pillow and pulls back to stare at a handful of purple petals and fluxweed flowers. The blooms are pretty, and she knows immediately what they're used for.

Fluxweed is a plant known for its healing properties. When it's used in Polyjuice, it brings about change.

Lily twists a slim green stem around her fingers and wonders.

After a stream of seconds lost in thought, she brushes her silly wonderings away and Vanishes the petals coating her pillow. Rising from her bed, she brushes her long hair back and readies herself for the day.

She will face it as she has done all the others: strong, unapologetically herself and without a trace of longing or regret.

* * * * *

Alice starts making sneaky little comments about Potter.

Lily has a lot of feelings about James Bloody Potter. Most of them are frustrated and irritated and unpleasant. But she can't deny that he's changed; even she has to admit that he pays attention in class more, and gets less detentions, and works harder than he's ever done before. She even starts to see him semi-regularly in the _library_.

She only gets glimpses, of course - just little snippets and snatches of the man James Potter is finally becoming - but she thinks she likes what she sees.

Alice notices. Of course she does. And not long after, Marlene is suddenly nudging Lily with her elbow when Potter walks past and smirking when they catch him looking at her and wiggling her eyebrows and winking outrageously every time he talks. Lily is embarrassed, she's indignant, she's downright refusing to so much as consider it - but all too soon she's in outright denial, because - maybe - Potter might finally be... _decent_.

The roots loosen around her lungs.

Marlene thinks it's hilarious. Alice thinks it's adorable. Lily thinks it's absolutely horrifying. But the next time Bloody Potter smiles at Lily when they pass each other in the corridor - and he doesn't say something stupid or rude or taunting - Lily feels herself _blush_. Just a little, and he's gone before he notices, but _it happens_. Dorcas squeals, Mary smacks her, Alice beams and Marlene howls with laughter, and Lily can't decide if she wants to go bury herself at the bottom of the Black Lake or just take fifty Bludgers to the head.

Maybe she already has, if these are the kind of stupid, crazy, _insane_ thoughts she's having.

Because there's no way Lily likes _Potter_ of all people. Even if he's better now, even if he's less arrogant and more genuine, it still isn't happening. Lily has standards, and Potter has been driving her mad for years, and she'll die before she goes on a date with that little toe rag.

And she's learned her lesson from the flowers - love hurts, and no boy is worth that kind of pain.

She still coughs flowers into tissues and the toilet - maybe less now than she used to, but they're still there, and her mouth still tastes like powdered roots and regret.

* * * *

But it doesn't have to be _her_ regret. That sour regret can be all _his_.

For the first time she wonders about the taste of letting go.

* * *

In Charms class Lily is as hard-working as ever, and her efforts pay off. When Flitwick realises that his NEWT class is too worked up about the Gryffindor-Slytherin match scheduled for the next day to focus properly, he resigns himself to the inevitable and instructs them to use the double class to revise everything they have learned so far.

Lily grins at Marlene in open challenge, and then the game begins.

Within minutes books and feathers and thirty duplicated quills are flying through the air around them in large, looping spirals, swirling up into the air like a stationary tornado. Alice laughs, delighted, as Lily and Marlene dissolve the classroom into barely-organised chaos, letting loose every Charm they can think of: huge icicles hang from the ceiling, glittering and crystal clear; the scrolls on Flitwick’s desk begin tap-dancing in time to a muffled Irish tune; soon the classroom is painted in bright, bold Gryffindor colours. Marlene is shamelessly enjoying taunting the Slytherins - one in particular, whose hair inexplicably turns bright crimson red - and Lily smiles and shakes her head but does nothing to interfere.

The Slytherins are adults now, after all. They can look after themselves.

But when Lily slices her wand through the air, shuttering all of the windows and extinguishing all of the lights - startling several of her classmates in the process - Marlene can’t hope to compete with her next move.

In the hollow, blank, silent darkness there are suddenly lights; hundreds of Lily’s little Lumos orbs, scattering through the air in strict formation. Tight helix spirals, silent explosions like fireworks; falling sparkles that look like a snowdrift of glitter.

These little lights have been Lily’s distraction, her comfort, her tiny, glowing friends for months. They come to her call readily, blazing with light and colour and _magic_. She can feel warmth emanating from them, touch the crackle in the air of something supernatural and otherworldly; they’re so small but together they shine so, so bright.

She grins.

The orbs surge upwards, hanging suspended in the air and pulsing with light, before suddenly gathering in a huge, shining wave that crests near the ceiling before plunging _down, down, down_ , swooping in a steep arc straight towards Lily. Alice squeals, Marlene whoops, someone else gasps - and then Lily is struck by hundreds of glowing spells, lit up like a supernova. Her skin glows and her hair flames, and she is radiant with light and magic and blazing happiness.

For a moment she is a blue-white Patronus in the darkness, like the one that’s been cantering through her dreams. She laughs, overcome with her own mischief and basking in how _fun_ it is to simply forget the world and set her magic wild and free. Lily flicks her fingers, sending sparks skittering about her, and revels in the joy of letting go.

And then the shutters fly back open, the lights pulse and go out, and Lily is left standing in a room of gaping classmates. She grins, Marlene claps, and her eyes flicker against her will to James Potter.

His friends are sitting with their mouths in varying states of hanging open, but James is who she focuses on. He looks like he’s been soul-struck, and as Lily blushes she can’t help but think that his gaze is appreciative and _fascinated_.

He smiles, slowly and then all at once, his eyes sparkling like her spells, and the tips of her fingers tingle with her starlight. She thinks she can taste magic.

After a second too long Lily turns and looks away - straight into the cheeky, triumphant face of Marlene McKinnon. She almost groans, because she knows that _look_ , and it never, ever ends well.

And Marlene isn’t the only one - Alice is positively skipping as they leave class, looking almost as delighted as she had when Frank Longbottom had asked her out. Lily tries, in half-hearted desperation, to swing the topic of conversation to Transfiguration homework or their recent Christmas or _anything_ \- but she might as well have not bothered at all.

‘ _Well_ ,’ Marlene says, her voice dripping with suggestion. ‘ _Well, well, well_.’

Alice giggles. Lily pretends she can’t hear either of them.

‘If that wasn’t our little Lily showing off to impress a boy, I don’t know what is,’ Marlene declares, smug and delighted, and Lily’s indignant outrage does nothing to stop her.

‘What?! _No_ -!’

‘Lily, darling, you were positively _radiant_ ,’ Marlene continues in excited whispers as they stride down the corridor. ‘James Potter couldn't take his eyes off you. He could barely _blink_.’ She smirks. ‘And he wasn’t the only one.’

Lily’s heart stutters briefly, but it is only brief. She isn’t even certain of why it stutters - or for _whom_ , if she’s being honest with herself. Which she isn’t.

‘Snape was practically drooling down his front,’ Marlene says gleefully.

‘He looked very shocked,’ Alice agrees eagerly. ‘He was staring at you.’

 _Really?_ Lily wants to ask, but doesn’t. She clears her throat in embarrassment. Perhaps she had gone a little too far in the classroom. But it had been so fun...

‘I didn’t notice,’ she mumbles, cheeks pinking, and that only sets the fire of her two best friends burning brighter.

‘She didn’t even notice!’ Marlene crows, her voice thick with mirthful laughter, and barely contains a snort. ‘Oh, this is brilliant!’

‘You _did_ notice someone else,’ Alice says slyly, giving her a look brimming with wicked amusement.

Lily stammers and blushes harder and can barely gather enough words together to deny it - by which time there is no point, because Alice and Marlene are already far beyond any sort of reconsideration or rebuke.

‘We’re going to that Quidditch match tomorrow,’ Marlene announces with great certainty, her eyes dancing. ‘You haven’t been in over a _year_ , that’s far too long. We’ll sit in the front row, and every time Potter flies past we’ll wolf whistle-’

‘Marlene!’

‘Maybe we can invite Frank to accompany us-’

Alice blushes almost as hard as Lily.

‘Oh, and shall we make a banner for Sirius Black, too?’ Lily cuts in, raising an eyebrow at her best friend.

Marlene chokes and momentarily loses track of her speech. She rallies quickly though, and sends Lily and a massive grin and a scandalous wink, quick peek of pink tongue and all.

‘ _Yes we shall,_ ’ Marlene declares, looking positively evil. ‘We can ask him if he beats anything else apart from Bludgers, and if so would he like to change that and try chasing me instead. I’ll happily tell him all about how big his bat is.’

Lily and Alice experience momentary spontaneous asphyxiation.

‘MARLENE!’

Marlene cackles.

She’s still laughing when her banner gets confiscated by Professor McGonagall the next day, waving cheekily at Black and blowing him kisses every time his circling of the field leads him their way. He’s quick to notice, and to Lily’s horrified amusement, is even quicker to start returning the yelled compliments.

When James comes streaking over to chastise Black for heavily favouring one side of the field and ordering him to get his swollen head back in the game, Marlene whistles so loudly Lily nearly dies. James, of course, glances over, and then his eyes catch on Lily sitting in the front row decked out in red and gold, and his lips part in stunned shock.

Marlene’s elbow rehouses itself in Lily’s stomach, and Lily seriously considers sending Marlene tipping over the edge of the Quidditch stands. Of course, Black would probably come racing to the rescue and catch her mid-fall, and Marlene would be utterly delighted, so Lily refrains from attempted murder. Barely.

Her cheeks stain red when James - _Potter!_ \- gives her a slow smile, and when he gives her a small wave she returns it before she can even think her actions through. _That_ morphs his smile into a beaming grin, and then he’s grabbing Black by the shoulder and towing him away - but not before he’s tossed a wink over his shoulder.

Alice is vibrating out of her seat she’s so excited. Marlene is ecstatic - whether for herself or her best friend Lily doesn’t have the faintest idea - and Frank Longbottom seems to be silently laughing at them.

Lily blushes harder and tells herself it’s the cold weather turning her cheeks ruby red.

When Gryffindor erupt in roaring cheers, stamping their feet and hollering at their hard-won victory, Lily can’t stop her eyes from tracking the player she’s been following for the entire game. James Potter loops through the air in victory, quickly joined by Black, who moves in sync with him before stopping and clapping his best friend on the back.

And then circling around to their stand.

The boys are both sweating and high on adrenaline, alight with some sort of energy that makes them almost glow. They look like they have a _Lumos_ under the skin, and Lily can’t stop herself from watching them. Really, it’s impossible.

Black, in all his cocky glory, pulls his broom to a stop right beside their stand, level with Marlene, and holds out one hand. His handsome grin has Lily’s best friend utterly besotted, and she’s lit up like she’s incandescent when she eagerly accepts the offered hand, slinging herself up out of the stand and onto the back of Black’s broom. She’s elated, and clinging tightly to Black’s fit body; Lily has no doubt as to what exactly they’re about to get up to.

No that it matters, because suddenly she can’t take her eyes away from another floating figure: James Bloody Potter.

He hovers before her, looking stuck somewhere between nervous, uncertain and reckless courage, his smile stubborn and hopeful and shy. Lily blushes again, feeling abruptly exposed, and sucks in a deep breath.

The air tastes clean and fresh. She focuses on the chill of late January air and the firm wood of the railing she’s clutching tightly beneath her fingers; all she can see is black hair, red and gold robes and - and -

Her heart stutters. This time Lily knows exactly why and who that skipped heartbeat’s for.

* *

Lily knows that love hurts. But now she considers that maybe that just means she has to make sure it's worth it.

Snape wasn't worth her love, her pain. But James... James might be.

Lily swore that no boy was worth that heartache - not again - but even she can't deny that James isn't a boy anymore. He's a man now, strong and tall and even _charming_ , and... and...

Well.

She's so careful, so painstakingly cautious - but she stops trying to hide. She watches James reach out to her, and for the first time... Lily reaches back.

Apprehensive, tentative, a little terrified - but she does it. Bravely, daringly, so trustingly despite all the reasons why she shouldn't be; her courage and her faith in kindness lead her in small, skittering steps towards something strange and scary and new... and maybe a little bit beautiful.

This could be wonderful. Lily is prepared to try.

It could be wonderful... and it is.

*

On a warm day in April, when the sun has dared to cast its soft yellow rays across the rural wilds of Scotland, Lily walks the long, winding path to Hogsmeade. At her side is a man - brave, bold, funny; kind-hearted and a little clumsy and sometimes even silly - and he's making her smile. Her cheeks are lightly flushed, and his hair is messy from the countless times his nervous hands have passed through it, and when he glances away from her she bites her lip and grins. She feels warm and wanted and alive, and it's all as wonderful as she'd ever dared to hope, and the next time he shoots an anxious glance her way she tugs gently on his wrist and brings him to a halt.

He watches her, curious and uncertain and so different from the boy he used to be. This man is confident but only to a point, and only in things he has every right to be confident in. He has no confidence here, with his heart on the line and nowhere to hide and all his emotions stripped bare and exposed.

But he is brave, for her, and it is so improbable and precious and typical of him. So she decides to be a little lionhearted, too.

Lily rocks forwards slowly, carefully, delicate in this dangerous dance. She balances on the balls of her feet, steadying herself with the strong, unmoving weight of him and her hold on his wrist; James holds still and she doesn't fall.

Her lips brush against his reddened cheeks, and she smiles. His eyes, dark and sparkling, smile back at her.

Lily breathes. Her mouth tastes of nothing. There is no more wormwood or asphodel; the draught has washed away and been drained from her veins. She has been cleansed.

Lily's heart flutters in her chest, free from any roots or vines or tangles, and when she presses her lips to James' her mouth tastes of him.

In June he gives her flowers. They're freshly picked and beautiful, and she remembers that love isn't always pain. Like flowers, love can be bright, too, and grounded and breathtaking and a riot of colour and emotion and happiness. Flowers only wither and die when they are not tended to or cared for; love, Lily thinks, is the same.

Every month of the summer he sends her flowers, but he never makes her breathe them. When she holds the bouquet to her face and the petals tickle her lips, there is no coughing or tight pain or strangling in her lungs. There is no blood.

She breathes the air, clean and fresh, and her lungs expand unhindered and free. Lily plucks a small, pale yellow rosebud from the rest, so small and delicate and beautiful, and lets her magic rest over it. She will preserve this little flower, and keep it safe and cherished, just like the warm love steadily beating in her chest. The next time James sees her, she's wearing it tucked carefully over her heart.

He smiles at her, open and delighted, and she realises that he's chosen her. Over everything else, he's chosen her.

She smiles brightly and chooses him back.

*v*

_You filled my lungs with wormwood,  
Choked me with your asphodel  
But I have learned to breathe once more  
Learned to fly after I fell_  
  
_I've left behind this wasteland  
Found meadows bright and free  
I've chosen love and loyalty  
As you should have chosen me_  
  
_We'll walk our separate ways now  
I'll depart with a grin  
If you glance back, you'll see I won't  
And that I'm happy now with him._

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! 
> 
> I am far too enamoured with the idea of Marlene McKinnon hollering “hey there, gorgeous!” and Sirius nearly falling off his broom in shock before he rapidly begins firing back the saucy compliments. And McGonagall nearly having a stroke. :,)
> 
>  **If you have a favourite quote, please let me know!** I absolutely love getting comments about which lines readers particularly loved - and comments in general! They are a balm to my weary soul~
> 
> And as ever, don’t be afraid to let your magic shine, and dare to leap into love. **But love yourself first, most, and always.**


End file.
